COVID, as it did for many people, clarified things. A camping trip to Cornwall in 2020 planted a seed. She sold her Manchester home, moved down, and eventually found her way through the Cornish hospitality scene, including a stint at The Nare, before landing at Harbour Hotel Fowey, a property that, she'll tell you, she didn't just take a job at. She chose. What drew her wasn't the estuary view, though that doesn't hurt. It was the bones of the building. Purpose-built, not a manor house awkwardly converted, but a proper hotel from the ground up, with its original cage lift still, dating from 1891, running through the centre, and rooms and spaces that have quietly shifted their purpose over the decades - a library that became a dining room, a restaurant that became a banqueting suite. "It still feels like a proper hotel," she says. "That matters to me."

If you've stayed at Fowey Harbour, you may have noticed that the place has a particular warmth to it, not the manufactured warmth of a corporate training manual, but something more lived-in. That's largely Kate's doing. She starts most mornings in the restaurant, serving coffee, chatting with guests, reading the room. On the day we met, a wedding was arriving. She was checking layouts, talking with the family, adjusting timings. "In a big city hotel, that would be a duty manager's job," she says. "Here, I'm both the manager and the host."

The team, she's quick to say, are the ones who make it work. She talks about guests who return year after year and greet the staff like old friends, bringing gifts for their children. About team members working through NVQ training. About her long-serving chef. "My job is to make sure they feel confident, supported, and like they belong." Fowey Harbour is one of the smallest properties in the Harbour Hotels group and consistently scores the highest customer experience marks across it. "Size isn't the point," Kate says. "It's about how you treat people."

When we talk about Fowey itself, Kate says she is noticing it changing. The food and drink scene is attracting younger visitors: she name-checks John's Wine Bar and Bottle Shop, Narla, the King of Prussia, and North Street Kitchen as places pulling in younger, more style-conscious crowds. The hotel is seeing that too. Loyal regulars, couples, long-standing visitors, people who treat Fowey as a second home, still anchor the quieter months of October, November, March and April. But there's a newer wave of visitors arriving. Kate notes that last Valentine’s Day, there was a definite shift, with the dining room full of younger guests in their 20s and 30s. Even the wine list tells a story. Fewer full bottles are being ordered. More guests want a single glass, taken slowly, enjoyed properly. The by-the-glass selection has broadened to reflect that, including premium options like Camel Valley English sparkling wine. "It's not endless," Kate says, "but it's broad enough to give guests a really good choice."

This is something Kate feels strongly about. Harbour Hotel Fowey shouldn't just be for people who've driven three hours to get here. Breakfast, at £18, is open to anyone, locals included, and the restaurant welcomes Fowey residents for lunch, dinner and special occasions. If you're from the town and register at reception, there's a standing 15% discount off food and drink. "We want locals to use us for breakfast, for a Sunday lunch, for a special meal," she says. "It's the way hotels used to be, a hub, not just a hotel."

Weddings are where the hotel really comes into its own. The whole property is available for exclusive hire starting from £9,000, and the riverside lawn, estuary views and flexible spaces make it a genuinely beautiful option for couples who want something that is really special. Because it's exclusively theirs for the day, couples can shape the space entirely, move the furniture, theme it how they want, make it feel like theirs. There have been some lovely variations on the traditional formula too. One recent couple chose a big breakfast over a formal dinner. The hotel has been running jazz-brunch events - live music, brunch, drinks, and will be experimenting with a more casual lawn setup where guests can order burgers, pizzas or drinks via QR code and have them brought outside in the summer. For baby showers and birthdays, the events space can been dressed by the hotel in woodland-style décor: neutral, chic, genuinely lovely.

By the time I leave, the wedding guests are arriving. There's that particular kind of afternoon energy that settles over a venue when something is being celebrated. Kate is in the middle of it - not managing from a distance, but present, attentive, at the heart of it.

It's taken Buckingham Palace, Manchester, Berlin and a posh chippy in Cheshire to get here. But Fowey, it seems, was always the destination.